


Written in Stone

by pinstripedJackalope



Series: TGGTVAV Challenge Fics [7]
Category: The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue Series - Mackenzi Lee
Genre: ...i have no idea how to tag this, Henry Montague Senior's A+ Parenting, I'm Sorry, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Statue Rights, Statue au, Statues, listen it makes sense i swear, this is essentially a crack fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:47:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23332606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinstripedJackalope/pseuds/pinstripedJackalope
Summary: Percy was a lonely statue.  He woke every year on statue day, alone, with no company but his violin.  Until one statue day, when everything changed...
Relationships: Felicity Montague & Percy Newton, Henry "Monty" Montague/Percy Newton
Series: TGGTVAV Challenge Fics [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1638925
Comments: 12
Kudos: 23
Collections: TGGTVAV AU Challenge Fics





	Written in Stone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [em_gray](https://archiveofourown.org/users/em_gray/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Heartbeat](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23003392) by [em_gray](https://archiveofourown.org/users/em_gray/pseuds/em_gray). 



> Took the ‘rock’ from em_gray’s fic Heartbeat to make this one! Some inspiration also came from [the maker](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDXOioU_OKM). 
> 
> [If you want a p good song to listen to, here's one!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0e5THnOteE)
> 
> EDIT: i put the wrong link for the second one I'm sorry.

*

*

*

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”

~Michelangelo

It begins with the slightest twitch of the fingers, clay cracking against the solid neck of a ceramic violin. One finger, two… and then the wrist, bending slightly, tendons flexing just under the cold, clay skin. Tremors move up the arm, muscles coming to life. Forearm, bicep, shoulder, neck. Eyes that were closed slowly blink open—and then, all at once, the ceramic figure begins to _move_ , head turning away from the violin in his hand to meet the gaze of the statue to his right, to the hand that is coming to life in his.

For a moment they just stare at one another, smiles playing at the corners of their lips. Then the ceramic violinist raises his right hand, the one holding the other statue’s hand, and pulls it to his lips to press a kiss to knuckles coming alive with warmth.

***

One day a year, on the longest day of the year, for as long as anyone can remember, all the statues in London have come to life. Is it a spell? A curse? Some natural wonder? It’s been so long that no one knows anymore. Decades, centuries… perhaps this phenomenon has been around since before the city itself, stones and logs peeling off layers to reveal hands and lips and faces like a selkie sheds its skin, and the first sculptor was merely the divinity that freed the soul trapped within.

That was what Percy’s creator used to say, anyway. He was the sort of man who thought clay had its own essence, an essence that informed the sculptor’s hands rather than the other way around. Like the great sculptor Michelangelo, Old Man Newton didn’t think of stone or clay as an infinite canvas. He saw the true shape, waiting to take form. And when his hands became old and gnarled, when he could no longer shape the clay, he would instruct Percy, the last statue he ever made with his own two hands and the only one he never sold, to shape the clay in his stead. Statue day, as it was called, was a special time for the two of them. For that one day, Percy would come to life, following his master’s instructions and creating statues, until, finally, the old man passed away, leaving everything to Percy.

For many years, Percy couldn’t look at the clay in his home without feeling a great sadness, a great loss. He would instead walk around every statue day, talking to people and playing his ceramic violin for them. He’d travel far and wide, sometimes hitching rides in newly invented automobiles to see the far side of the city. And at the end of the day, when the sun set on the horizon, he would sigh a great sigh and raise his violin to his cheek, slowly crystalizing back into nothing more than the statue of the violinist. He would close his eyes as the light left the city, knowing that the people of London would move him back to his designated spot at his master’s former home, all alone, to put the city back to rights.

It happened every year, the exact same way. No matter how long he traveled or how far he got, when he opened his eyes once again he was back at the beginning once more. 

Then, one year, a statue approached him with an odd request. “I have a fortune,” the statue said, “and an estate. What I need is a son to help run it. You have made statues—make me a son and I will pay you handsomely.”

Percy considered the proposition. He had no need for money, no… but he did need a companion. He had never thought to make one before, too saddened by the loss of his creator. So he agreed, on the condition that he be allowed to visit his creation once every five years.

The statue allowed it, and so Percy pulled out his creator’s books about clay and started to build. He worked… and worked… from the break of dawn to the fall of dusk, his hands molded and carved and etched, working to the specifications the statue had given him. An hour before the light of the sun disappeared completely he put his creation into the massive kiln in his creator’s yard. He paused there, thought for a moment, and then knelt to carve into the shoe of the statue. A P for Percy, his given name. An N for Newton, his creator’s surname. And an f hole, from his violin, a mark of where this statue came from and where he would always, always be welcome home.

Satisfied, Percy closed the kiln and set it alight, setting it on it’s timer. And just as he was about to freeze again at the end of the day he pulled out his violin and began to play, wringing notes from the strings as he slowly turned back to blank, lifeless clay.

He waited, his eyes closed and his violin on his shoulder, locked away in his ceramic body, until the next year when he could open his eyes again. He opened the kiln, looking for the statue he created. But the humans must have moved it to the elder statue’s estate already, for it was nowhere to be found.

He sighed but accepted it. In five years time he would be able to see his creation, after all. In the meantime he continued on how he always did, playing for anyone who would stop and listen and sighing as he opened his eyes each statue day at his creator’s house once again, alone alone alone.

One year, two… three, four. On the fifth year he opened his eyes with excitement coursing through him, and waited for his creation to arrive. He had no idea where the other statue’s estate was, and thus he assumed that the statues would come to him, but as the sun rose and rose in the sky he began to doubt. Still, he waited, slowly plucking at the strings of his violin. Noon-time came, and then afternoon, and as he waited with his heart growing heavier and heavier and the sun slowly sinking down to the horizon again he realized that no one was coming.

It hurt. By god, it hurt. The ache of loneliness inside of him was eating him up. So the next time he woke, he resolutely began to make another creation—a girl this time, one with spectacles and a book in her hand. She wouldn’t leave. If she did, then he would make another. If they, too, left, then he would make more, and more, until, finally, someone stayed.

The girl, he realized when he was done, looked an awful lot like the son of the statue of the man that he’d made. They could have been siblings. Felicity, he decided her name was.

She was reading when he opened the door to the kiln the year after she was made. She peered up at him from behind her spectacles and he smiled down at her. Slowly, with small dimples in her cheeks, she smiled back.

The two of them became fast friends after that. Felicity was a feisty girl, determined to become a doctor despite the law against statues getting medical degrees. She left every statue day to study medical texts in the library, but she always made sure to come back an hour or two before dusk to give Percy company.

It was a few decades after her creation that she came home early one morning with news—she’d heard rumors of a statue with cracks running down his face, a statue who had been mistreated by another statue, a statue with the initials PN carved into his shoe.

“He’s yours,” she said, her eyes piercing into Percy. “He’s yours, and he needs you.”

Percy’s ceramic heart squeezed in his chest. “But I don’t know how to find him,” he said, holding his violin to his chest.

“You’ll look,” Felicity said, determination flowing from her. “You’ll look, and you’ll find him, and you’ll _help_.”

Percy nodded, standing. Then out he set, taking to the streets of London and searching, searching, searching. For one hour, two, three he went. He crossed streets and bridges and squares. He talked to anyone and everyone, asking after the statue with the cracked face. He went into the suburbs, following streets filled with mansions, calling and calling.

Nothing. No answer. Not until Percy, left with no other ideas, pulled out his violin and began to play. Notes rang out, drifting through the air. And as he played, and as the sun slowly drifted down toward the horizon, he heard a response. A call. From the far side of the plaza he was walking past. And he raised his head, and there… there he was.

He was shorter than Percy remembered. He must have shrunk a lot in the kiln. And his face, his ear… his ear was missing, cracks radiating outward. But he was smiling, and his smile, his dimpled face… by god, it was beautiful.

“It’s you,” he said, stopping just before Percy and looking up at him.

“My name is Percy,” Percy responded.

The statue laughed. “Monty.” And then: “I remember your music.” He was breathless, his entire being lifted in joy as he held out a hand.

Percy took it, holding it tightly, his own smile growing. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. Your father…”

Monty’s shoulders dropped. “I know. But there’s nothing to be done about it.”

“There must be something,” Percy said, holding Monty’s hand to his chest. “We’ll—we’ll run away, we’ll leave, we’ll—”

“How?” Monty asked, shaking his head. “It’s almost dark and the humans will return me to my father. There is nothing to be done.”

“There must be,” Percy said. He thought of Felicity, of her stubbornness, her desire to practice medicine. He thought of himself, of his creator, of his clay hands crafting Monty. He thought of the city, of the magic flowing through it. He thought of his music, of it calling to his creation. And as he did, as the sun sank down and the night rose up, he set down his violin and pulled Monty to his chest, tucking him under his chin. “If you are returned to your father, I’ll go with you. I will freeze tonight right here, with you in my arms. I will never let you go. I will never leave you again. Not now, and not ever.”

“You promise?” Monty asked, clutching at Percy’s shirt as the light dimmed all around them and all the statues began to still.

Percy breathed out, feeling his lungs becoming inflexible, and spoke with the last of the softness of his tongue, “I _promise_.”

And so the sun set and their limbs grew stiff, wrapped around each other and holding tight. The humans found them in the morning so thoroughly entwined that it was impossible to move them away from each other without breaking them. And as they looked for a way to separate them, to return them each to their respective homes, they found to their anger the cracks in Monty’s face, chips from being hit, his missing ear. 

It was a unanimous decision that day to chain down the elder statue with the matching cracks in his hand. He would never again move freely on statue day, secured, all alone, in his crumbling estate. 

As for the pair of statues, the violinist and the son… well. 

It begins with the slightest twitch of the fingers. 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Murder at Mirror Manor](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23528497) by [em_gray](https://archiveofourown.org/users/em_gray/pseuds/em_gray)




End file.
